BY: TORI WILLIAMS
Staff Writer
Capstone is the worst. It’s something most near-graduates seem to agree on and something most students have heard of if they’ve been at STLCC for very long. But, is it really true? Yes. Yes, it is.
For those who don’t know, Capstone is a required course for anyone seeking an associate’s degree. Students are asked to look back on their experience at STLCC and evaluate their proficiency in four areas: higher order thinking, communication, managing information and valuing. Using these skills, they must create a project that will take 10 to 15 hours to complete and then execute it. After their project is finished, they will then present it to the class and turn in a reflection paper.
If Capstone sounds like a class on how to bullsh*t, that’s because it is. Capstone is useful for one thing and one thing only: giving people an excuse to do their hobby for a grade and pretend like it’s a totally new experience. Playwrights get to write a new play or pull out an old one that’s been collecting dust on their computer desktop for the last three years. Avid outdoors people get to finally plan that camping trip they’ve been dying to do with their friends or they can collect receipts and pictures from one they were planning on doing already. These are all fine, but no one is learning anything except for how to deal with the frustration of participating in a pointless class.
Speaking of frustration and pointlessness, the criteria for projects are vague, yet said-criteria can cost students significant points when they don’t do something the way the professor wants. The most helpful thing in this instance would be a rubric — ironic, given the first part of the project is working on a rubric. The lack of transparency is abysmal; surprisingly, not the worst part of the class.
The worst part about Capstone is that the teachers don’t even care. They say they do, but good luck getting feedback or grades on time. Additionally, the comments are as useless and trivial as “sounds good.” It took a teacher two weeks to write “sounds good?” It took me twenty minutes to write the paper in the first place. It’s shorter than this article. It doesn’t take that long to read.
To add insult to injury, the name of this class is Capstone. It should be Keystone. St. Louis is the home of the Arch, the shining Gateway to the West: the keystone is what holds it together, the final piece placed at its apex. The entire structure would come crashing to the ground without the keystone. Obviously, STLCC is attempting to say that Capstone is the final piece in the puzzle of general education, but a capstone is a poor symbol to use — especially in this city. It’s the cherry on top of a laundry list of things that make Capstone terrible.
